Find My iPhone Glitch

This is more for documentation, but if others out there experienced something similar or have any answers/solutions, then please share here.

This afternoon, a mother and her teenage son stopped by my parents’ home, claiming that Find My iPhone pinged the house for lost air buds. We told her that’s not possible, and so, she sought answers from our neighbors. She returned to my parents’ home as it was specifically pinged. We indulged her and the son, and we looked in the backyard, and again no luck. After a quick Google search, I found the following article: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.androidauthority.com/why-you-cant-trust-find-my-phone-apps-668949/amp/. The gist is that Find My iPhone is not 100% reliable possibly due to Wi-Fi interlopers, bad triangulation, bad mapping services used by phone providers, etc.; there have been numerous instances when innocent folks’ homes have been incorrectly pinged for lost or stolen phones. Unfortunately, it seems there isn’t much anyone can do. (Progress may have been made since that article was published. I haven’t done enough research.)

I shared the above information with the mother, and she readily accepted it, perhaps because she was exhausted from having to look for her son’s air buds. In the end, I obtained her number in case we do come across them.

I hope this is an isolated incident for my parents ...